Ex-vegan target of 'pie assault'

[The Straight Story]

Ex-vegan target of 'pie assault'


SAN FRANCISCO, March 17 (UPI) -- An ex-vegan, hit with a pepper-laced pie while promoting her anti-vegetarian work at an anarchist book fair in San Francisco, says her assailants were cowards.

Lierre Keith, 45, stood at a lectern at Golden Gate Park's Hall of Flowers Saturday at the 15th annual Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair discussing her book, "The Vegetarian Myth," when three people in black hooded sweatshirts and masks ran from backstage, shouted, "Go vegan," and threw chili pepper-laced pies in her face, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday.

Keith, a 20-year vegan, was midway through her 30-minute talk railing, she said, against factory farming and factory-farmed meat when the attack was caught on video and later posted to Web sites.

"The whole thing was designed for social humiliation," said Keith, speaking from her sister's home in Kansas. "We're supposed to be against sadism and cruelty and domination, and these people were willing to do this to me."

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/03/17/Ex-vegan-target-of-pie-assault/UPI-30651268872924/

[NYC_SKP]

1. File under "only in San Francisco"... could have been Berkeley, too, I suppose...

.

"An ex-vegan, hit with a pepper-laced pie while promoting her anti-vegetarian work at an anarchist book fair..."

Not many other American cities would have this kind of thing happen, not very often...

:P

[arcadian]

6. I've been to one anarchist bookstore in my life.

and it was in the Haight

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

2. This part was awesome

"The whole thing was designed for social humiliation," said Keith, speaking from her sister's home in Kansas. "We're supposed to be against sadism and cruelty and domination, and these people were willing to do this to me."

Um, what do you expect at a FRIGGIN' ANARCHIST BOOK FAIR!!??

[awoke_in_2003]

3. Nice way to win over converts...

of course, I am probably going to be going almost vegan next week. My first doctors visit in 8 years, and I am going to hear about weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol. No way I am taking pills when I can try to fix it the right way (diet) first. (And I say almost vegan because I may allow myself a small lean steak every couple of weeks)

[flvegan]

4. Ha! Good.

I've read a good chunk of her "book" and she's an idiot.

[arcadian]

8. Why did she turn?

[flvegan]

9. IIRC, she had a lot of problems as a teen that she blamed on her vegan diet.

She made her personal experience into an absolute for everyone. Some of what she says is good. She promotes eating locally and growing your own food, which is very good. Had she not tried her damned hardest to alienate a bunch of her target audience, it would have been a good "localvore" type of book, I think.

I didn't read the whole thing, so I know I've missed a chunk of what she said, but she seemed so spiteful, much of it was just tiring to read.

[kenny blankenship]

5. Vegans - they eat their own!

[deaniac21]

7. Oh, the HUMANITY!

[Maru Kitteh]

10. Anarchists have book fairs?

For reasons not yet clear to me, I find that very funny.

[LeftyMom]

11. The one year I don't go...

[PhD]

12. "Bomb-throwing anarchists" have been replaced by "pepper-laced pie throwing anarchists"?

Haymarket Square has been replaced by an anarchist book fair?

[SteveM]

13. Street activism isn't dead, it just smells that way.

[Xithras]

14. Heard her on the radio this morning describing her attackers as "rapists".

She compared what they did to bad pornography. "Assault a woman, humiliate her, dominate her, and then brag about it to your friends. That's not progressive, it's like bad porn, or rape."

FWIW, I think her attackers are lowly cowards. She raises some incredibly good points in her book, backs them up with research and facts, and conveys them in an easy to understand manner with the goal of starting a discussion on the subject. For them to assault her over that is pathetic.

[petronius]

15. I'm not a fan of pie attacks either, but "rape" is pretty hyperbolic

I think she could condemn the childish attack without that level of exaggeration...

[BuddhaGirl]

16. a physical assault because the idiots disagreed with her?

and filled with cayenne...militant cowards